Aftershocks (6 page)

Olivia had more than nailed it. Zoe was supposed to take care of her fiancé. Her
husband
. Passively hoping Pat left them alone was stupid. She had to act now, whether or not she told Kell.

But how much more could he handle? She’d never seen him the way he was tonight, so stressed and exhausted. She couldn’t add worse to it. And the photos told her she couldn’t wait until things got better. There had to be a middle ground.

She threw water on her face and rinsed her mouth, then dried with a hand towel and stared at herself in the mirror. She looked worse than Kell had. Believably sick, and that was how she’d play it to start. She had to handle this right, or it would backfire and not only would she lose everything—he would, too.

* * *

“Stone, are you even listening to me?”

Kell stared blankly at his friend. “What?”

James sighed. “Apparently not. Maybe I should just work with Tanicia on this case. Your super-assistant can contribute more than you are.”

“I’m sorry.” He rubbed his forehead and realized he hadn’t taken a single note, and this meeting had started half an hour ago. “I’m worried about Zoe.”

James dropped his exasperation. “She okay?”

“She’s been sick.” She’d stayed home from work yesterday and today, and last night when he got home he’d found her in bed, buried under a pile of blankets, her eyes red like she’d been crying. He wanted to take her to a doctor, but she insisted this morning that she was better. He knew she was lying.

“Anything I can do to help, man?” James looked concerned, and Kell shook his head.

“Not yet, thanks. If she’s no better tonight, though, I may need to ask you to cover a couple of things for me tomorrow while I take her to the doctor.”

“Sure, anything.” James tapped his pen twice. “You want to go now?”

Kell eyed the phone, then forced himself to concentrate. “No, I can get through today. Let’s start this again.” He slipped on his reading glasses and studied the report James had brought him. “What’s their market share?”

Though he managed to work the rest of the afternoon, distraction plagued him. He couldn’t shake a sense of foreboding about Zoe’s illness. He couldn’t remember her ever being sick in the two years they’d been together. That alone was no big deal, but she’d been acting odd for a while before they had dinner with Olivia, and even that night, she’d only seemed half there.

Had she been told something about her health? Was it more serious than a simple flu? Possibilities kept popping into his head, compelling him to look up symptoms online. He almost called her parents about their medical history but stopped himself just in time. He’d only met them a couple of times, and they were very protective of Zoe, very clingy. She told him they’d had a scare when she was a child—he couldn’t remember what—and never got over it. So indicating to them that there was something wrong with their daughter, when he had no idea what it was, would be a mistake.

He gave in and called the apartment twice, but there was no answer. Sherry said she hadn’t seen Zoe all day, which, knowing her, didn’t mean she wasn’t there. But short of running over there, Kell was powerless. And he had a client meeting he couldn’t miss that afternoon.

By four o’clock, when he walked the client out to the lobby, he couldn’t stand it anymore.

“Tanicia, what’s left on my schedule?”

She smiled up at him. “You’re clear.”

“Good. I’m taking off.”

“All right. Take care of Zoe.” She smiled again and turned back to the brief she was reviewing.

The anxiety that had grown all day had him swallowing acid by the time he pulled into the parking garage of their building. Zoe’s Civic was parked in its spot, but facing in. She usually backed it in, so she’d gone out today. Kell got out of his BMW and beeped the lock, frowning at her car. The back seat was full of…bedding? That looked like the quilt her mother had made.

He swallowed back panic and hurried to the elevator, cursing internally every time it stopped at a floor, hating that they’d chosen view over convenience. Two floors up, then a ding. One floor. Three more. Why the hell didn’t they have an express elevator? The doors opened again and he shoved his hand through his hair, trying to keep a shout of frustration inside.

“Kellen! How lovely to see you!”

He smiled tightly at Mrs. Ridgebottom, an elderly woman who lived on their floor. She swung a tennis racket at his rump as she stepped onto the elevator and turned to face front.

“Gladys and I just got back from the club. She pulled her hamstring showing off for the new tennis pro, so I helped her to her apartment.”

“I hope she’s okay.” He wasn’t really listening. His whole body was tense. He needed to be in his apartment
now
. Something was going on. Something far worse than a pulled hamstring.

Mrs. Ridgebottom chattered at him all the way to the twentieth floor, then waved a cheery goodbye, hardly seeming to notice his rudeness. A lifetime of “good breeding” was all that kept him from running down the hall. He unlocked the deadbolt and handle and shoved open the door, shouting Zoe’s name.

But she was right there. Waiting for him. Standing in the middle of their perfect apartment, dressed in perfect-fitting jeans and the sweater he’d gotten her for Christmas.

“Kell, I’m sorry.”

With three words, she shattered their perfect life.

Chapter Three

Zoe almost couldn’t do it. When Kell burst through the door and saw her, when his face crumpled before she finished the apology she’d promised she wouldn’t make, she almost took it back. Told him everything.

But then she thought of the pictures, of Olivia. She really had only one plan of action that would keep them safe, and Kell wouldn’t allow it. He’d try to protect her, and that would increase the danger for all of them. The only way to keep him out of this was to be brutal and sharp, cut clean. So he could heal and move on with minimal damage while she did what Pat wanted and kept everyone safe.

“What the hell…?” Kell’s voice came out a rasp. “Are you—you’re not—
leaving
me?”

Zoe nodded and swallowed hard. Her eyes burned. “I have to.”

“Why?” He rushed forward and wrapped his hands hard around her upper arms. “Are you sick?”

She shook her head. “Not like that. No. I just realized that I don’t belong here. With you, in this life. I love you, Kell.” She knew she couldn’t lie to him about that and didn’t even try. “But we can’t be together. It won’t work, and if I let it go on even a day longer, it will hurt you more in the end.”

He shook his head, the pain and confusion in his eyes cracking her heart in two. “It couldn’t.”

He was wrong, but she couldn’t explain. Couldn’t tell him that her past had invaded their present and would shred their future. Pat could insidiously destroy everything, and Kell just wouldn’t understand. He’d want to make things right, and only she could do that.

“I think you’re being selfish.” He dropped his hands and backed up a step.

She folded her arms against herself and nodded. Of course she was. She would rather he hated her for breaking their engagement than for her secrets. At least his memories of their time together would be whole. Better he find someone else to take her place than be carved up by Pat and Freddie.

“I left the ring on the dresser. In a box.” She ignored his flinch, the way he rubbed his chest with the heel of his hand. “I didn’t take anything we got together. Just my clothes, some of the things from my childhood…”

“Your quilt.”

“What?”

“I saw your quilt in your car.”

So he’d known, or suspected, when he came in. “I wanted to be ready to go. I didn’t think you’d want me to stick around after I told you.”

“Told me what?” He spread his arms. “You haven’t told me shit.”

It was her turn to flinch.

“What have I done?” His voice broke. “Why do you think we can’t be together?”

“It’s not you.” A tear spilled out of each eye. “I know the phrase is a big joke, but it’s me. I can’t stay. I would rather do anything else but hurt you, and I don’t have a choice. This will hurt you less.”

“Less than what?”

She shook her head and blinked back more tears.

“You owe me an explanation.”

“I know.” She took a deep breath and tried to envision ice encasing her heart. It didn’t work very well. “But I can’t give you one.”

“Why?”

If he pushed any more she’d break. She had to leave. “I’m sorry, Kell.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out the keys to the apartment. He wouldn’t take them when she held them out, so she laid them on the small marble-topped table behind the cream-colored sofa. “Goodbye.”

She expected him to let her go, pride and defiance and pain holding him immobile, but he didn’t. He jumped in front of her to block her progress to the door.

“No way. If you think I’m a quitter—”

“I don’t think you’re a quitter!” Fear sparked to life, burning away her sorrow. Why wouldn’t he react like he was supposed to? “I told you, this has nothing to do with you!”

“But you expect me to just stand here and let you go.”

She stared at him, no longer sure what to say to push him away. “I
need
you to let me go.”

“Are you late for something?”

“What?” She frowned, the determined clench of his jaw increasing her fear. “No. I’m not late for anything.”

“Then you’ve got to convince me.”

“I do not! It’s my decision!”

“You can decide to leave, but you can’t control what I do about it.” He studied her, the lawyer taking over. “You weren’t really sick. You were packing.”

“And finding a new place, yes.”

“In a two-day period. Not a lot of planning time.”

“You—you don’t know that.”
No, Kell, please don’t figure it out.

But he was smart, and analytical, and she hadn’t done enough to hide.

“Something was off the night we went out to dinner with my sister. You’d been distracted before that, but things got much worse that night. So something happened two days ago to make you do this.”

“No,” she insisted. “It’s been coming on for a long time.”

“We’ve only been engaged two weeks.”

“That was it.” Why hadn’t she thought this through better? “I’m not ready. I thought I was,” she added, knowing she couldn’t convince him that her happiness that night hadn’t been real. “But it’s a much harder thing to do than I thought it was. The commitment. To you.” She was botching this. Kell’s expression was shrewd. He knew her too well and was seeing right through all the haphazard reasons she dug up.

“Goodbye, Kell,” she tried again. And again he got in front of her.

“You’re not afraid of anything.” He put his hand on her chest to hold her away from the door. “Definitely not something as easy as lifelong commitment. What else is going on, Zoe?”

“Nothing!” She knocked his arm away and tried to push him aside. “You don’t know me as well as you think you do, Kellen Stone, and I’m not going to drag this out and make it worse for both of us!”

“Worse for you, you mean.” He didn’t budge.

“No, worse for both of us. It will be much better if you just forget about me. Move on.” She blinked back more tears and stood, defeated. She remembered staunching Grant’s blood with a filthy towel. It was all too easy to imagine Kell shackled and bloody, with a gleeful Pat and sickly delighted Freddie standing over him, others forcing her to watch as Kell was tortured. She would do everything in her power to make sure it didn’t happen.
Please, Kell, let it go. Let me
go.

“Getting engaged made me look at us differently. At myself, and what I wanted. I’m not ready for this.” God, she hated herself. “I take too much from this relationship and don’t give enough back. That’s not right. And I can’t be happy that way.”

He was braced to argue, she could see it, until the last words. His defeat broke her. Something inside her cracked wide and filled with pain.

“If that’s what you want,” he said quietly. “I love you. I want you to be happy.” He stepped aside.

Zoe dashed the few feet to the door and wrenched it open, desperate to get away before she overrode herself and ruined everything. Once she was gone, everything would be okay. Kell would be safe, his family wouldn’t be targeted—and she could focus on fixing her situation.

She avoided looking back over her shoulder, not wanting to see him letting her go.

* * *

“Grant. Tank. Gotta job. Tunisia. Call me.”
Beeeep
.

Grant Neely didn’t look up from the printouts he was reading. When he didn’t call Tank back, the mercenary would call someone else on his list. Next time he needed someone with Grant’s skills, he’d call again. It was a nice way to work. Simple. No politics, no games.

Unlike that other world. He gave a derisive snort and tossed aside the engagement announcement his mother had faxed him while he was in Russia. No matter how many times he told her he wasn’t interested, that he didn’t care about the New Life and Ambitions of Zoe Ardmore, she still kept sending him this crap.